Australian edible mushrooms | Tall trees and Mushrooms

Posts tagged Australian edible mushrooms

In search of Woorda

May 9, 2021 · Filed under Edible but untried, Edible Fungi · Tagged Australian edible mushrooms, Ebile blue staining bolete Australia, edible Australian fungi

There is not a lot of information around on the fungi eaten by indigenous people in Australia before the arrival of Europeans. One of the few references on the topic is by James Drummond who arrived in the Swan River Colony in the year it was founded, 1829.

He was a botanist and a keen observer and recorder of the local flora as well as the diet of the original inhabitants. The following is a snippet from a letter he wrote to the Perth Enquirer in May 1842.

I have often wondered if it might be possible to identify the blue staining bolete that he describes as Woorda. There are many blue staining boletes in Western Australia and I know of several that people have eaten but none of them fit the description he gives. I had long suspected that it might be a Gyroporus since members of that genus are eaten elsewhere on the globe and with one exception they appear to all be edible.

A paper published in 2019 gives us some some useful information about Gyroporus in Australia. It is titled “Three New Species of Gyroporus (Boletales, Basidiomycota) from Australia”. In it is a description of Gyroporus occidentalis with an explanation that it is the only rapidly blue staining member of the genus from WA.

I was fortunate enough to spot one of these on a friend’s property this year and it is shown in the following video and photographs. It is recorded as growing from sandy soil (well, that’s most of the coastal plain!) and it’s range includes Perth. I think that there is a some chance that this is Woorda but see below for further possibilities.

The rapid blueing reaction in real time

In situ view showing cap surface and pores

Some of the features of this mushroom match the description in the paper closely. The cap is described as “dry, floccose to matted woolly to heavily appressed tomentose, yellow-white to yellow buff to dirty yellow, cyanescent, with slightly extended margin”. This close-up of the cap surface seems to match that description. I couldn’s see that the cap margin was extended though.

The pores are yellow and cyanescent and approximately 0.3mm in diameter with a typically pentagonal outline.

Anther interesting aspect of this is the name Woorda. Of course transcriptions of language are subject to errors and interpretations and so forth but the records of Daisy Bates provide for some interesting reading. These are available in digital form here. The many words recorded as meaning mushroom are provided on the site as a map. shown below. It triggers the question of whether the diversity of names matches the diversity of species that were part of the diet.

Map of words for mushroom from digital Daisy Bates site

The term Woorda appears in a dictionary of Balardong Noongar language as meaning fungus. It is difficult to know if this is a generic word or refers to the specific fungus that Drummond mentions. He does seem to infer that it is specific. It is notable that, at the time he wrote to the Enquirer, he had been farming at Toodjay (Duidgee) which is in Balardong country. That would imply that the range of the fungus includes Balardong country. I am not sure if Gyroporus occidentalis extends out this far but it will be interesting to find out.

Noongar groups. Attribute John D. Croft, English Wikipedia

The situation is complicated by the fact that there are other, rather similar looking blue staining boletes within Balardong country. One of these is documented by Doug Sawkins in his excellent record of the fungi of Foxes Lair at Narrogin. His very large blue staining bolete is similar in some ways to Gyroporus occidentalis but it lacks the chambered stem and has red tones where it has been attacked but insects. It matches one of Daisy Bates’ records of Woorda meaning ‘large mushroom’.

It is interesting to note that there is another record of the consumption of blue-staining boletes, in this case from Gippsland in Victoria It was made by the Silesian naturalist Lothar Becker who visited Australia in two trips in the period 1849-1865. This record is reported in a paper by May and Darragh in Historical Records of Australian Science, 2019, 30, 130-137, titled “The significance of mycological contributions by Lother Becker”.. A snippet from this is reproduced below.

Once again there is no information to identify this mushroom and there are many boletes that share this blue-staining property. I am not sure if there are any species that are common to Gippsland and Western Australia. We can rule out Phlebopus from Drummond’s comments and in any case they don’t always display blue staining. From time to time people report eating blue-staining mushrooms from various locations in Australia but sadly there is scant information regarding the actual identity of them. In some cases they have been eaten by people of European origin who have perhaps mistaken them for species from their home region. In one case in Western Australia consumption is recorded in a YouTube video and it was on the basis that boletes are generally non-toxic. This assumption has some statistical support but it remains the case that one of the few cases of fatal mushroom poisoning in Australia was from consumption of a bolete.

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Macrolepiota dolichaula – one of the best of the edibles

March 13, 2021 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, Australian mushrooms, Edible Australian mushrooms

Macrolepiota dolichaula in its typical habitat – a grassy paddock (Image credit: Pixie Miller)

Macrolepiota dolichaula is a large mushroom that can often be seen in open paddocks from some distance away. It occurs in the warmer regions of Australia such as the North Coast of New South Wales and Queensland. It also occurs in other countries such as Vietnam, Northern Thailand and China. In all those places it is also considered an edible species. Genetically, the specimens from Australia form a monophyletic clade with the species from China. DNA Barcoding shows a 100% match between specimens from Australia and China. This is shown by specimens lodged by the mycologist who specialises in this genus, Else Vellinga. Genetically, it sits close to Macroplepiota procera, with which it is often confused.

Phylogenetic relationships in Macrolepiota, from :

When it is young, the mushroom has is bell-shaped (campulinate) as shown in the image below.

Young specimen of M. dolichaula shown bell-like shape (Image credit: Pixie Miller)

The centre of the mushroom has a slightly raised area (an umbo) which often has a light tan colour. From the centre, the cap squamules radiate towards the rim, the spacing getting wider towards the outside. These are white to very faint yellow-brown. The whole cap at maturity is between 60 and 210 mm in diameter.

Cap of M. dolichaula showing radiating squamules.(Image credit Drew Raison)

The gills are white to begin with, but darken to a straw colour over time. They are crowded and are not attached to the stem (free) and the length alternates between long (lamellae) and short (lamellulae).

Gills of M. dolichaula are white at first but become cream coloured over time. (Image credit: Drew Raison)

M. dolichaula, showing alternating long (lamellae) and short (lamellulae) gills (Credit: Jye Zap)

As the cap expands, a partial veil extending from the edge of the cap to the stem breaks away. This membrane has a similar texture to the cap surface. At the edges of the cap, ragged remnants of this partial veil remain.

Expanded cap of M. dolichaula showing partial veil breaking away. (Image credit: Simone Small)

If it is not torn away completely, as in the above image, on the stem, the remains of the partial veil form a ring or annulus. This hangs downwards.

Annulus on M. dolichaula (Image credit: Pixie Miller)

The stem (stipe) of the mushroom is often lightly covered with squamules rather like the cap. It tapers slightly from the base to the top and it is hollow. At the bottom of the stem, when cut or bruised will develop an orange/brown colour. It does not produce a bright red colour and does not form a colour at the top of the stem. The stipe also splits into vertical pieces. This can be seen starting to happen on the last picture at the bottom of this post.

People sometimes refer to these mushrooms as Parasols, or White Parasols but i prefer to avoid terms like this as they can lead to much confusion.

This mushroom needs to be distinguished from Chlorophyllum molybdites. With practice this is easy to do but for the beginner, the simplest test is to wait until a specimen matures and the gills of C. molybdites will be seen to develop a dark grey/green colour.

It also needs to be distinguished from Chlorophyllum hortense, a mushroom with smaller stature but similar appearance. This distinction can be made by the fact that Chlorophyllum hortense stains bright red immediately right through the whole length of the stem. Another feature that is less clear is that C. hortense has a striate margin, that is to say closely spaced lines at the edge of the cap.

In a book recently published by the CSIRO this species is listed as poisonous because of unspecified reports of bad reactions. Given that this mushroom is so easily confused with Chlorophyllum molybdites, I am confident that this mis-identification is the origin of such reports.

Within the Australian mushrooming community (not to mention China and Asia) this is regarded as one of the most popular and tasty of wild mushrooms. I am not aware of a single report of ill effects but I am aware of dozens of glowing reports regarding the edibility and taste.

M. dolichaula, picked and ready for the kitchen. (Image credit: Jye Zap)

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Lactarius deliciosus – Saffron milk cap – an east coast favourite.

February 16, 2017 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi, Uncategorized · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible mushrooms, pine plantations

The Saffron milk cap is a mushroom that occurs widely on the east coast in pine forests. Foragers are actively encouraged to pick this mushroom in NSW in places like Oberon. It also occurs in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Reports from Queensland are rare but it is occasionally found there. Sadly, it is not something we see in the pine forests of WA, though there have apparently been unsubstantiated reports of it from the Kewdale area, according to Bougher and Syme (1998). There is another mention of someone trying to establish this in WA in an earlier paper. I have certainly never seen it in WA.

To view one of these beauties I had to travel to Adelaide on a heads up from some friends there. These were cropping up in early February of 2017 after some rain, to the general surprise of enthusiasts there. There were not a lot of them at this time, but I did manage to find this single specimen, to my great joy. Thanks to Kate et. al. for the heads up!

This is what it looks like from the top. Notice the pine needles.

When cut, the inner surface reveals an orange colour at the margins, as shown below.

Lactarius deliciosus showing red cut surface

Some texts say that these mushrooms are not particularly good eating and that the name is in fact a misnomer. To test this out, I took my specimen down to a the barbecue at a local park in suburban Adelaide and fried it up with a little olive oil. Adelaide is so well endowed with such parks and barbecues and I am sure that they are a popular gathering place. On this particular day however there was nobody else around though, and perhaps that is because it was 42 degrees. All this reinforces the oddity of finding mushrooms at this time of year.

Anyway, back to the taste test. I found that the smell and the taste were intimately entwined and that it was a pleasant and unusual taste. It is hard to describe a smell or taste but I kept thinking of vegetables like carrots. This may well have been influenced by the orange colour. The other very distinctive and great thing was the firmness. This is easily the most firm mushroom that I have ever cooked and eaten.

I look forward to eating more of these. Who knows, perhaps they might crop up in WA? Time will tell.

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Rhizopogon – a taxonomic challenge

October 7, 2016 · Filed under Fungi, Potential edibles · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible mushrooms, Perth edible fungi, pine plantations

A walk in a pine plantation in WA during winter will often reveal a truffle-like fungus lying on the top of the ground or sometimes almost buried.

Rhizopogon pseudoroseolus

This is Rhizopogon, introduced with the pine trees and a very effective fungus for assisting the pines to grow. The mycelium from fungi such as these acts as an extension of the roots of the trees, drawing in nutrients that would otherwise be unavailable to the trees.

Many sources report that the species occurring here are Rhizopogon luteolus but DNA results on the specimen pictured above match R. pseudoroseolus (GQ267483). This species, an introduction from the USA is also very common in New Zealand, though the appearance does not appear to match either the image nor the key published by Jerry Cooper of the Fungal Network of New Zealand. There are many different species, lots of variability and many published revisions of this genus so it does make identification difficult.

In Japan, a member of this genus, Rhizopogon roseolus is much prized as a food where is it known as Shoro. The Kiwis, always much more proactive on these matters than we are, have done some comparisons on the species growing in New Zealand with those in Japan and have gone so far as introducing the Japanese species into NZ as a potential agricultural product.

This is not an easy fungus to identify visually and there is sparse information about edibility. My friend Jsun has eaten a species that grows in Queensland and while visiting here he pickled some that I had collected. These are shown in the picture below. He has selected specimens that were firm and had a white interior when cut in half. When pickled, the outside became quite distinctly reddish.

Pickled Rhizopogon pseudoroseolus

I have eaten small quantities of these and must say that they are rather bland. Jsun reports that he likes to add them to stews and so forth and that they soak up the flavor of the dish.

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Laetiporus portentosus -White punk, poor tucker indeed

August 3, 2016 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi, Potential edibles, Uncategorized · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, Australian mushrooms, bush tucker, edible Australian fungi, Laetiporus portentosus

There have been many reports from the times of early European settlement, all from Tasmania, of the Aboriginal people eating a white’ punk’ growing on trees. It has been widely assumed that this is Laetiporus portentosus, formerly known as Piptoporus portentosus.

This June I chanced upon a specimen of this lying on the ground in Bridgetown. It was quite a massive thing, weighing several kilos and it was saturated with water. That is why I assume was on the ground, having fallen from its position because of its weight. Here it is sitting on my dining room table.

Fallen Laetiporus portentosus on table

Here is another shot of it, this time showing the inside after I had cut it open with great difficulty. I don’t think this would have been possible with primitive tools.

Laetiporus portentosus cut open

You can see that the inside looks sort of cottony. In fact it more closely resembles polystyrene in texture. An attempt to eat a small piece of it revealed that it was about as edible as polystyrene too. Not even in an emergency could anyone possibly eat and digest this fungus. Perhaps the story is different with very small specimens but I am doubtful.

It is quite difficult to get a picture of one of these in-situ on a tree because they tend to grow quite high up. I was lucky enough to spot one by a road cutting near Donnybrook that enabled me to scramble up and take a picture with my phone. Here it is.

Laetiporus portentosus in situ

The fact that these are relatively few and far between and so high up on the trees is further evidence against them being used as food.

It is however widely reported that they were used as tinder and to carry fire. Some experiments revealed that a dried specimen could be ignited very readily and that it would smolder for a long time. By judicious control of the fire front on a smoldering specimen it could easily be kept aglow for hours. Uncontrolled burning of half a specimen lasted about 40 minutes. I made a short video of a small piece smoldering after it had been ignited. A still from that video is shown below.

A piece of Laetiporus portentosus smoldering

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Macrolepiota clelandii – after some careful consideration

May 8, 2016 · Filed under Edible but untried · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible mushrooms, edible Perth mushrooms, Macrolepiota clelandii

This is a common mushroom around the karri forest and other places during the early part of the rainy season. It used to be listed as Macrolepiota konradii in guides until quite recently until Else Vellinga renamed the group in 2002. Almost all sources list this as edible, except for Tony Young who says that this Australian species is of unknown toxicity.

Macrolepiota clelandii

Its edibility seems to be based on the fact that is was thought to be the same as the edible M. konradii from Europe. It has also been mistakenly called Macrolepiota procera both here and in New Zealand where it also occurs. In reality, Macrolepiota procera occurs in neither place.

Here is a picture of the top surface.

Macrolepiota clelandii top surface

The size of this mushroom varies a bit. In the SW of WA it is a rather pretty and delicate mushroom that will sometimes spring up in the oddest places. I had one come up once half way down a post hole that I had left open. The specimen pictured is about 150mm high with a cap 100mm across. That is a typical size for around my area. Further north I have seen pictures of larger specimens. They don’t occur as a small mushroom. In fact, there are some small Lepiootas that look rather similar and some Lepiotas are deadly.

Update: August 2016

My fellow blogger Jsun and I picked some of these during July and he was able to confirm that they were the same as those he had eaten in the east. I watched him cook and eat some and being thus encouraged I had a small portion myself. I am now much more confident about these. One thing he pointed out to me was the ‘snakeskin’ pattern on the stem which also flares out at the base.

Snakeskin pattern on stem

The ring or annulus is quite distinctive also, breaking up in radial splits and being attached at first, but moveable with some encouragement.

Detail of ring

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Leucoagaricus leucothites -with caution

April 27, 2016 · Filed under Edible Fungi · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, edible Australian fungi, Edible fungi Perth, edible mushrooms

Leucoagaricus leucothites

Leucoagaricus leucothites was formerly called Leucoagaricus naucinus and with the state of flux in taxonomy at present, it might have another name next year. It is a mushroom of worldwide distribution, widely known as an edible species but often recommended as a species to be avoided because it shares so many features with a couple of deadly Amanitas. For this reason nobody should attempt to eat these unless they are completely confident in being able to distinguish an Amanita.

I spotted the specimens above by the side of the road, which is a common place to find them. The caps are bright white with a satin texture. The shape of the large specimen in the picture is characteristic of this species. The underside features a hollow stem that widens a little at the base, but does not have a sac or volva like Amanita or Volvopluteus. The gills are at first white but darken a little at maturity. The spore print is bright white.

It is always a little scary eating something new but even more so when it is something with white gills and a white spore print. Nevertheless, after much checking and re-checking I fried some up and did a taste test. From descriptions elsewhere I had expected something more; it tasted just like Volvopluteus gloiocephalus. The mature specimen even looks a little like Volvopluteus.

One can only wonder how species like this manage to spread so far and wide. Apparently the spores of this one germinate very readily in a wide range of media so perhaps that has something to do with it. Anyway, another of our introduced species that is edible for what it is worth.

July 2022

This mushroom has had a few different names. One is Lepiota naucina. It was described as an edible species way back in 1901 in an excellent book by American Professor of Botany, George Francis Atkinson, called “Studies of American Fungi, Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous etc.” available on Project Gutenberg.

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Volvopluteus gloiocephalus – a common roadside species

January 19, 2016 · Filed under Edible Fungi, Fungi · Tagged Australian edible fungi, Australian edible mushrooms, bush tucker, edible Australian fungi, edible mushrooms, Volvariella speciosa

I was doing some research and maintenance today when I realised that I didn’t have a blog entry for this mushroom, though it is a very common one that I have been eating for 30 years. Perhaps I accidentally deleted it. It used to be known as Volvariella speciosa until quite recently when some DNA studies indicated that it should be placed in a new grouping.

If you are driving around Perth in wintertime, you will see this everywhere growing on roadside woodchip mulch. It also occurs on waste ground. It is not generally a good idea to eat mushrooms that grow by roadsides as they can accumulate various toxins. However, these are so widespread that it should be possible locate some that are growing in a safe spot.

One of the important things to know about this species is that it looks very similar to an Amanita. On the east coast, people have died after picking and eating the deadly Amanita phalloides, mistaking them for Volvariella volvaceae, the paddy straw mushroom of Southeast Asia and Queensland. It would be very easy to make a similar fatal mistake here in the West, confusing Volvopluteus with other species of Amanita. I have seen the two growing very close together and they are nearly impossible to tell apart. It is only when the mushroom reaches maturity and the rusty orange gills become evident that Volvopluteus becomes easy to identify.

Now for some pictures. I had to recover these from an old computer in the shed that I first bought in 2003. That was an interesting exercise in itself, requiring removal of the hard drive and taking it to the computer shop.

This first picture shows the mushroom just as it is emerging. It looks just like the hard boiled egg that I have placed beside it.

Emerging mushroom beside a boiled egg

As it grows, it begins to take on some shape. You can clearly see the sac or volva at the base.

Beginning to grow, showing volva

At maturity, it takes on a classic shape.

Typical Volvopluteus gloiocephala at maturity

The gills, which are white at first, take on a rusty orange colour at maturity. It is at this stage that identification is most accurate.

Mature specimens, showing gills

This mushroom has an unusual and distinctive taste. I often cook it in a sauce that I add to silverbeet and serve it with roast chicken.

All of my numerous attempts to cultivate this mushroom have failed, resulting in a slimy bacterial looking mess. It is possible, as others have done it, so I will give it another go next time I find it, with my more recently installed laminar flow hood.

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Clitocybe (Lepista) nuda – The Wood Blewit – a surprise

August 4, 2015 · Filed under Edible but untried · Tagged Australian edible mushrooms, Blewitt, Lepista nuda

Someone who is enthusiastic about mushrooms like I am will let their friends know about it and when they spot something that you might be interested in, they will tell you about it. So it was the other day when we were looking at a house for sale in Bridgetown. My friends were in a small section of yard where someone had dumped some grass clippings. Spotting some mushrooms, they called me over. To my amazement, there was a cluster of Clitocybe nuda, perhaps more widely known as Lepista nuda, or the Wood Blewit. This is a very cosmopolitan and widely eaten mushroom, that requires cooking before consumption.

This mushroom is an introduction to Australia and is quite common on the east coast where I frequently see pictures of specimens that others have found, but having never seen it in Western Australia, I assumed that it did not occur here, like several other species more common in the east. Edit: I have subsequently found that there is a single record from the Perth region from 1981, but I cannot access the record for some reason. Too old perhaps.

The particular specimens that were growing from the grass clippings were rather aged, though there were some new buttons starting up. In the image below you can see both.

Clitocybe nuda in grass clippings.

I have overturned the mature specimens to show the purple colour of the gills. You can just see a purple button emerging at about 5:30. (sort of, sorry about the image quality, I had to use my phone). Here is a close-up of one of the buttons in the pile.

Button of Clitocybe nuda

Because these specimens were too old, it was not possible to consider eating them. I am currently in the process if trying to get a clone going from one of those little buttons though.

Edit. I visited the site about a week later and the little button had grown into a small but fully formed mushroom. I think that these are some of the prettiest mushrooms around. When cut, the stem showed a purple colour similar to the gills.

There are some other purple mushrooms around that one might easily mistake for this one. These belong to the genus Cortinarius and it would be most unwise to eat any of them. The one the springs immediately to mind is Cortinarius archeri. There are two main differences between Cortinarius and this mushroom. The first is that Cortinarius always grows in association with a tree. It is mycorrhizal. These specimens are quite clearly growing from the grass clippings where the mycelium could be seen reaching down into the pile, however. The second is that Cortinarius has a rusty orange spore print (see below). These had a rather pale spore print (it was a very faint print because of the age) but is was clearly not rusty orange. The orange colour of Cortinarius can also be seen in the gills as they mature and as a deposit on the stem, where the remains of a membrane is evident. Prue also talks about this type of confusion on her blog. She is possibly referring to Cortinarius austroviolaceus which is the Australian version of C. violaceus.

Cortinarius archeri

Another couple of purple capped mushrooms are Leucopaxillus lilacinus and Russula clelandii.

Though I haven’t eaten this one, my friend Fiona over at WhereFishSing has reported her experience with it, which anyone interested might like to read.

Now that I know that these are around, I am hoping to find more of them. And if anyone comes across some little purple button mushrooms growing in their compost or grass clippings, keep and eye on them and please let me know about it.

If I manage to get this into culture, I will post some further images.

As a footnote, there are several other species related to this one growing on the east coast though they are smaller.

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Fistulina spiculifera- Beefsteak in name only

June 16, 2013 · Filed under Edible Fungi · Tagged Australian edible mushrooms, edible Australian fungi

Fistulina hepatica is a cosmopolitan fungus that is known in Europe as growing on oak trees. In Western Australia the local equivalent is Fistulina spiculifera and it favours Jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata), though I have one next to my house that grows on a Blackbutt (Eucalyptus patens or Yarri). The same species grows in the other southern states on different substates. The name Fistulina tasmanica appears to be an equivalent. Another undescribed species has been reported from the tropical north. Though it could not be classed as common, it is widespread. I have seen it growing in Kings Park in Perth. It probably grows right throughout the range of the Jarrah tree. As a young fungus, it is quite soft and dense, but as it ages it can become quite tough, like many other bracket fungi. Here is a small specimen that is around 120 mm across.

Fistulina spiculifera

Here is a much older image from the days before digital cameras. I spotted this large cluster on a roadside tree in Kings Park.

Fistulina spiculifera cluster

Note the ribbed upper surface. The underside is yellow pores and it has a yellow spore print when viewed as a dense mass.

Fistulina spiculifera spore print

There really isn’t anything else that you could confuse this with unless you really tried. Though the specimens I have seen do show signs of insect attack, they do seem to be quite resistant to that attack and the fungus makes it through to old age without being reduced to a mush, if I may use that term

When cut into slices, it displays quite a pleasant pattern:

Fistulina slices

With some exposure to the air, the cut surfaces can take on a liver red colour, which is where the ‘hepatica’ part of the name comes from. This colour may be due to the phenolic compounds that are reported to occur in it. It is also reported to contain vitamin C, which is unusual for a fungus in my experience.

The name ‘Beefsteak fungus’ is perhaps unfortunate as it tends to make one think that it should be treated like a piece of meat. The taste, however is nothing like meat, or any of the mushrooms that you might normally serve with meat. Raw, it is rather bland, but with a light frying it takes on a slightly acidic taste that most closely resembles some sort of fruit. So much so that I think it might reasonably be incorporated into a sweet dish. I have given a sample to a friend who is a cooking guru to see what she comes up with. In the meantime, I have left some in the fridge while I wait for a response.

This fungus has been brought into culture and I will see if I can persuade any of my friends with expertise in that field to attempt the same.

I will add to this post when I have investigated further.

19 June 2013

I cut the mushroom into thin slices and poached them in a sugar solution. The resultant pieces were similar to apple which has undergone the same treatment. With enough of these, one could perhaps make a sweet mushroom pie.

23 June 2013

Thus fungus is responsible for an effect known as black fleck in jarrah timber. I have been told by a local tree faller that timber with black fleck does not bend and warp in the same way that normal timber does.

8 July 2021

There are several mentions of this fungus in old records and I will try to list some of these here. The first is a mention by James Drummond in a letter to the Perth Enquirer in May 1842. An extract is shown below.

A decade earlier than this, May 1832, Alexander Collie went on an exploration to the land north of Menang country with a man named Manyat. He wrote;

I did not require Manyat’s services as an interpreter, for I did not meet with any Aboriginal people during the whole of my march of ten days, to the distance of 65 miles from King George’s Sound.[Collie doesn’t mention the direction he went in, but I expect it was to the west of the Stirling Ranges to somewhere in the region of Tambellup

Manyat performed the service of fire starter and carrier. This he did with the barren spikes of the banksia serrata (or mungat), the seeded cones of the banksia grandis, or the bark of the jarrah tree. The first and last require no preparation, but the second is placed in the fire till the outer surface is little burnt, then buried in a hole scraped in the earth with the pointed handle of the knife (taap), or of the axe (koit). The excursion seemed to make him very happy; it certainly supplied him with abundance of food, as he had the same rations as the other people travelling with us and whatever he could obtain through hunting.

The animal kingdom chiefly supplied him with kangaroo rats (wo-ail), bandicoots, possums and crows. One of the bandicoot species found is possibly a new species and has no tail. The vegetable kingdom occasionally furnished light and highly relished morsels in two sorts of fungus totally different from our mushroom or the French truffle. They are species of boletus; the one growing out of trees, of a beautiful crimson colour above. Its Aboriginal name is numar. The other grows out of the ground, of a greyish colour, and globular form: it is named mord. They are both eaten raw, are very juicy, and have a slight flavour of the chestnut.

There are other mentions of Numar in various dictionaries. An example is shown below.

It is interesting to note the spelling in this last case as I was fortunate enough today to speak with George Walley, a Noongar man from Mandurah who not only runs a business showing people about traditional culture (Mandjoogoordap Dreaming) but who was introduced to this mushroom by his grandparents. He advised me that the correct pronunciation is with the ‘u’ pronounced as in the word ‘book’. He also said that as a child he had eaten it cooked on a fire. That is different from what Collie described and shows that it was prepared in different ways.

The image below shows the spores of this species. In this case I used Quink ink as a simple substitute for lactophenol cotton blue as the stain. Seems to have worked ok. I haven’t got a scale for this at this stage. These spores are in-situ within the tissue.